Will Garrett-Petts: Will Garrett-Petts is a critic, curator, and writer who has published widely on interarts practices, seeking an interplay between the critical and the creative. His interest in visual literacy and visual forms of communication has led to recent curatorial initiatives on intersections between photography and literature, on the writing and exhibition of artist statements, and on community memory mapping. His books and catalogues include Artists’ Statements and the Nature of Artistic Inquiry (Open Letter, 2007); The Small Cities Book: on the Cultural Future of Small Cities (New Star, 2005), Proximities: Artists’ Statements and Their Works (Kamloops Art Gallery, 2005), Relocating the Homeless Mind: Memory, Landscape, the Small City and Rural Community (Comox Valley Art Gallery, 2004), The Homeless Mind: An Exploration Through Memory Mapping (Bookworks Press, 2003), PhotoGraphic Encounters: The Edges and Edginess of Reading Prose Pictures and Visual Fictions (U of Alberta Press, 2000), and Integrating Visual and Verbal Literacies (Inkshed Publications, 1996).

Garrett-Petts directs a five-year Community-University Research Alliance that champions the role of artists as both researchers and active agents for community development. With Rachel Nash, he organized and directed an international workshop on Artistic Inquiry and the Role of the Artist in Academe (SSHRC Workshop, 2005), held in conjunction with two exhibitions, Proximities (with work by Stephan Kurr, Donald Lawrence, Paula Levine, Kristi Malakoff, Ashok Mathur, Jan Peacock, Brenda Pelkey, Brigitte Radecki and Sandra Semchuk) and The Courthouse Project (with Bruce Baugh, Panya Clark Espinal, David Hoffos, Ernie Kroeger, Donald Lawrence, Glen Lowry, Celeste Olalgiaga); his critical/creative work has led more recently to his own role as a contributing artist to Witness Marks: Exploring the Exotic Close to Home (2006) at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria. His current work looks at vernacular-based practice in the visual and the personal museum, the nature of artistic inquiry, and the “artist statement” as an emerging genre.

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